For Both Love and Money: Viviana Zelizer's The Purchase of Intimacy

Viviana Zelizer's recent book, The Purchase of Intimacy (2005), presents an innovative theory of how social and legal actors negotiate rights and obligations when money changes hands in intimate relationships—a perspective that could change how we understand many things, from valuations of homemaking labor to the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund. This essay describes Zelizer's critique of the reductionist “Hostile Worlds” and “Nothing But” approaches to economic exchange in intimate relationships and then explains her more three‐dimensional approach, “Connected Lives.” While Zelizer focuses on family law, the essay goes beyond that context, extending Zelizer's approach to transfers of genetic material and concluding that her approach could point toward a more equitable resolution of disputes in and about these markets.     

Judges’ sentencing decisions with older offenders

Older offenders tend to be treated with more leniency in the criminal justice system. A number of studies show that older offenders are less likely to be incarcerated, and when they are incarcerated, are more likely to receive shorter sentences. However, to date, no research has directly examined why such leniency occurs. This study asked U.S. state trial court judges to reflect on their sentencing practices with older offenders and to rate the factors considered most important when sentencing this population. Responses were received from 212 judges. Only 31% of judges acknowledged treating older offenders with greater leniency. These judges also indicated that they predominantly rely on legal factors when making decisions about sentencing with older offenders rather than factors specifically associated with age. Only cognitive impairment was identified by judges as one of the five most important factors to consider when sentencing older offenders. These results are discussed in terms of judges’ awareness of how they weigh information to make legal decisions. The influence of judges’ age and attitudes about aging on sentencing decisions are also explored.     

The United States in a world of rising regional powers: farewell Lilliput,hello Shanghai

Regional powers such as China, India, Russia, and to a lesser degree Brazil and South Africa, now occupy a significant role on the world stage. The United States, while still enjoying superpower status, has taken note. At the same time, the transnational nature of the challenges facing the world will require multilateral and bilateral co-operation perhaps unprecedented in modern history. How will the United States respond to these new requisites within the context of this changed world? While it is too early to assess the Obama administration's foreign policy substantively, it looks to be adopting an approach emphasising the building of consensus and multilateralism in its international engagement. Moreover, there is reason to expect that it will actively seek a more constructive set of relationships with regional powers. United States domestic political constraints may yet hamper Obama in this new approach, as might the type of response the new administration receives from old and new powers to its overtures. Whether the changes are more in tone than substance remains to be seen.     

Making Every Vote Count: The Important Role of Managerial Capacity in Achieving Better Election Administration Outcomes

A public agency's capacity to implement policy and achieve valued public outcomes has been a long-running area of research in public administration. Many articles provide theory and empirics regarding the capacity to implement policy, but relatively few examine multiple types of agency capacity within the same analysis. This article develops a model based on the election administration literature in political science and public administration to examine the effects of managerial capacity, financial capacity, and technology on the election management outcome of the residual vote rate in North Carolina election jurisdictions. The results indicate that higher levels of management capacity and technology significantly reduce problems with voting as measured by the residual vote rate. Financial capacity shows a negative association with the residual vote rate but is not significant. The article concludes by discussing how studying election administration provides an important and uniquely good administrative context for developing administrative theory.     

Chapter 3: The Influence of Juveniles' Race on Police Decision-Making: An Exploratory Study

Previous studies evaluating the effects of juveniles' race on police decision-making have rendered inconclusive results. Many of these studies have suffered from methodological shortcomings. The present study utilized vignettes to describe police-juvenile encounters in order to determine police charging practices for black and white youth. The results suggest modest offense-related race effects. Black youth tend to be charged with more offenses while white youth were released more frequently. A refinement in the research methodology is indicated for further explorations of the critical issue of police bias.